This week, it was widely reported that 13 customers of the Sterling, VA Chipotle store exhibited symptoms of food poisoning. And, in fact, one tested positively for norovirus. What is norovirus?
"Norovirus is a stomach bug that causes inflammation of the stomach or intestines. As a result, symptoms include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach pain and fever. According to the Mayo Clinic, symptoms usually come on between 12 and 48 hours after exposure to the virus and last between one and three days. While contagion is low after a couple of days, you could continue to shed the virus for up to eight weeks."
Thanks Time Magazine. That sounds great! In short, it's bad...really bad food poisoning. You may need medical attention, if for no other reason than to rehydrate yourself. As you could probably imagine, it would likely be most dangerous to those in our population with compromised or under-developed immune systems: young children and our senior population. And, what's worse is that it's easily transmitted. In addition to eating tainted foods, you can also catch it by touching a contaminated surface and then touching your eyes, mouth or nose. Frequent hand-washing, with soap, is the answer, as it is for many of these preventable diseases. In the case of the Sterling location, it's extremely likely that a carrier for the virus (employee?) touched something that 13 people ordered and it just spread.
That doesn't mean that you should stop eating at Chipotle restaurants all across the United States. Actually, they're one of the better "fast food" chains as they have made it a mission to use locally sourced ingredients. CNBC reported in December of 2015 that locally sourced produce accounts for around 10% of the total produce used at Chipotle locations. That's hard to do. Why? Because in order to run a successful national chain, you need to provide customers with identical dining experiences between franchises. Introduce a variable like multiple local suppliers and then you have a massive added cost in order to maintain consistency and safety practices. In turn, it increases prices somewhat for these added steps, but customers seem to have embraced it. The Harvard Business Review describes it this way:
"Number one: If you are doing local sourcing, you have to bake into your cost structure a higher percentage of sales allowance for food safety and ingredient testing than if you are sourcing nationally from a few big suppliers. Obviously, that can have a bearing on your retail price, but, in general, consumers expect to pay more for locally-sourced products, particularly if they have other attributes, such as being organic or natural."
While not specifically noted, this may be one of the reasons McDonald's parted ways with their holdings in Chipotle. Business Insider reported in 2015 "The chief executive, Steve Easterbrook, said Chipotle was a distraction." It's also the reason why Taco Bell's 2006 e coli outbreak was far, far worse. It led to 71 cases in 5 states. The distribution of contaminated lettuce from a single supplier located in the "western United States" (read: California) was the culprit.
The lesson, eat more locally. The other take-away, this outbreak at Chipotle was very well geographically contained. Your favorite Chipotle wasn't affected. So, go, order a burrito today with confidence. Actually, the reason not to eat Chipotle was never because of what you could catch, but more about watching what you eat. A ton of "healthy" ingredients in obscene portions still makes for bad habits. Examples of single 2,000 calorie meals at fast food chains can be found here and here. And, yes, Chipotle makes the list.
Bon Appétit
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